Providing a safe operating environment for day to day operations is an essential requirement for an air traffic control system. A traditional air traffic control system may coordinate flight planning between various airspace users. This effort may be focused on ground based systems that are managed to support user requested trajectories. However, with the increase in air traffic, requirements for improved environmental performances, and the need for flexibility in planning and execution, the amount of processing required of such air traffic control systems increases rapidly.
A flight management system, or FMS, is a computer system onboard an aircraft that may automate certain in-flight tasks. For example, a conventional FMS may use various sensors to determine the position of the aircraft (e.g., utilizing satellite positioning, inertial navigation, radio navigation or the like), and guide the aircraft along trajectories plan pre-established by air traffic controllers. However, the ground systems that prepare such trajectories and the aircraft that executes these trajectories may be rigid and rule based. They may not be able to take into consideration any dynamic or real-time operational and environmental factors. Therein lies the need for a trajectory planning method that takes such factors into consideration.